LinkUp Forecasting That the U.S. Economy Lost 25,000 Jobs in January

Total job openings in the U.S. rose slightly in January but the increase was way below the average January increase of 5% seen in LinkUp's data over the past 17 years.

It’s been yet another horrific week in Minneapolis heading into month two of the siege and occupation and despite what were always blatantly hollow promises of de-escalation, things have actually gotten worse. Luckily federal agents haven’t murdered any more U.S. citizens over the past 9 days.

With the images above and below providing some sense of what’s transpired over the past week or so, I’ll keep the commentary to a minimum and jump straight into the U.S. job market, our data for January, and our non-farm payroll forecast for January.

To begin, and quite fittingly given the chaos, dysfunction and complete meltdown of the country, it’s worth noting that we are, yet again, heading into another BLS data blackout with the delay in January’s Employment Situation Report.

These rolling data blackouts are clearly becoming a thing.

Fortunately, we have an alternative source of accurate, reliable data that provides insight into what’s going on in the U.S. labor market. Unfortunately, however, what we’ve been seeing in our labor demand data - millions and millions of job openings that we index globally every day directly from company websites - continues to be grim.

Based on our data from December, when new job openings in the U.S. dropped 5.6% and total job openings dropped 3.7%, we are forecasting that the economy lost 25,000 jobs in January.

And while labor demand picked up a bit in January, with total job openings rising 1.4%, that is well below what normally occurs in January every year when employers have typically increased job openings nationwide by an average of over 5% over the past 17 years.

Most states showed a gain in labor demand…

…as did nearly every state in terms of new job openings.

Labor demand rose in manufacturing but was flat in services.

Openings increased in all but 4 industries…

…and rose in white collar jobs but were flat in blue collar jobs.

And by occupation, labor demand rose in all but 4 occupation categories.

We’ll see what the data looks like if and when we get it at some point in the future, maybe, but regardless, as we stated a few weeks ago, the U.S. economy, as a job creating machine, has been completely shut off and we don’t expect that to change anytime soon.

Lastly, a few more images from and a poem for Minnesota…

I’ve been trying to write poems for Minnesota

have been watching through my screen

the floods of people in the streets

hands to my throat, I’ve been hoping

I’ve been angry with language

and the twist of it

the men who spit ‘terrorists’

but Minnesota, you’re still stronghold of our winter

you know ice and can run without slipping

listen, it’s a rare thing

that I am proud to be American

but Minnesota, you’re an open sky

I’d fly a flag in you and maybe

for the first time I’d mean it

I mean a look at you

whistle-mouthed with signs

your signal threads the memory of five summers back

we can last by the light of you

can catch fire from your heat

Minnesota, show us quick now toward freedom

Zoe Branch